I picked a really poor phrase there. See the comment one above mine: "I know I've seen systems that use sensors you mount around the edge of a whiteboard and special markers to track where you are drawing and reproduce it electronically on remote monitors"
In those cases, they are one way systems. You can setup another going the other direction, but it's not a shared whiteboard. The remote end can't tell your markers to draw on your board.
There are ones that use a projector and fake makers (ie. a marker shapped IR LED), but then the orig question fully applies - what do you use? There are certain makes/models of these things, and they are often incompatible.
SD expansion is only an issue if you don't get enough memory in the first place.
Maybe most people don't care, but there are many very very good reasons to have this feature. My personal favorite is that, with recent android builds, you can no longer plug your phone in and have it show up as a mass storage device (without rooting/etc). If you want to actually access the filesystem where your data is stored, then you have to take out the SD card and use a reader - at least that workaround is available.
Blackberry's Z10 has a replaceable battery and few complained that it's a thick phone. It's certainly not razor thin either, but you can easily allow the user to replace the battery and have a very useably thin phone.
The z10 is actually thinner than an iPhone 4 or 4s, neither of which had removable batteries. The iPhone 5 is only 0.3mm thinner than the Samsung Galaxy S4, which had a removable batter.
I was curious of the general size comparisons regarding thickness, so I looked these up:
Samsung Galaxy S6 edge : 7 mm Samsung Galaxy S6 : 6.8 mm Samsung Galaxy S5 : 8.1 mm Samsung Galaxy S4 : 7.9 mm Samsung Galaxy S3 : 7.6 mm (CDMA for verizon or sprint) Samsung Galaxy S3 : 8.6 mm (GSM/others)
iPhone 6 Plus : 7.1 mm iPhone 6 : 6.9 mm iPhone 5 : 7.6 mm (same for 5s) iPhone 4 : 9.3 mm (same for 4s)
Blackberry Z3 : 9.3 mm Blackberry Z30 : 9.4 mm Blackberry Z10 : 9 mm
Motorola Moto X : 10 mm HTC One - M9 : 9.6 mm HTC One - E8 : 9.9 mm LG G3 : 8.9 mm Nexus 6 : 10.1 mm Lumia 635 : 9.2 mm Lumia 532 : 11.6 mm
Maybe using a non-removable battery made it possible fore Samsung to go a little thinner, but it's very little on something that's already quite thin. I'd suspect the restriction has more to do with other things, or at least a combo of reasons, such as: * having no sd card support meant access to that was not needed * water/dust proofing is a lot easier if the back is not user serviceable * move to metal frame probably brought some limitations (or challenges). The old plastic backs were simple to pop off/on without (much) damage.
I'm sure they had their reasons. I'm also sure that I'd rather have SD card support and an easily replaceable battery. However, if the feature in balance were waterproofing, I could be convinced to give up the battery and sd card.
Seriously? Digital whiteboard? How does the other side touch it?
In this day and age of tablet ubiquity, it's the ONE THING they should be nailing perfectly. There should be a couple "standard" protocols or apps for this (though I won't hold my breath... the main text chat clients/protocols don't interoperate, so who would expect anything more complicated to work).
Every time I go to look for a whiteboard solution (networked and multi-user), I'm amazed that the old solutions are no longer around, and there's new solutions, and the places that I'd expect to have grown to cover this feature (existing and popular chat clients like pidgin, skype, hangouts, jitsi, etc) still don't have it.
The direct answer to TFS's question is not all that interesting. Why it's not an obvious couple answers is, IMO, interesting/peculiar.
Hate replying to myself, but I hadn't RTFA before posting. I'm not entirely against what they're saying/proposing. It's a different way to do things, rather than just some folks whining and complaining and avoiding estimates for stupid reasons.
Holy crap! Are people actually buying into this BS?
Software coding/design is similar to solving a maze -- you just can't give an accurate estimate how long it will take to solve the maze.
WTF? Yes, you can give an ESTIMATE on how long it'll take to solve a maze. Go get a book of mazes; Do 10 of them; Time yourself for each one; You now have min, max, and average times for a maze of that size/complexity. Next time someone shows you a maze, you can make an educated guess about how large/complex it is, then give your best case, worst case, and normal/average estimates. Do the same for programming.
Estimates are good for repetitive or non-creative tasks...
They're also good for creative tasks. I went to college with a major in fine art and worked for years as a monument engraver (etching portraits/landscapes/etc on tombstones). If someone asked about how long it'd take to etc a 5x7 portrait, I'd have a VERY accurate estimate for them. Is that not creative enough for you? How about every single project for every single class for every year of art school? ALL of those had timelines, and every student became quite good at estimating how long each project would take so they could get them all done on time. And you could ask most of them (at least those with higher than a B average) how long it would take them to do a certain thing (ex. sculpt a bust in clay from a live model) and, if they were familiar with that medium, then they could give you a very good estimate.
Estimation in the software world is a scam perpetuated by managers and management to get developers to work extra hard.
If management is asking the devs for their estimate, then how in the hell is it management fault for any of those timelines? Let me put this another way... devs, BE SMARTER. You've been asked for estimates on more than one occasion. Most that are new to development will low ball (stating a best case estimate). If/When you do that, you're just setting yourself up to fail. The best outcome will be that you are on time, and every other outcome sucks for all involved.
If you're not good at estimating, just try, come up with your figure,then double or triple it. If you always come in under the estimate, then you manager may start adjusting your estimates... who cares? Let them. It's their fault if you don't meet their manipulated figure. However, if you're not giving a large enough estimate in order to get your work done, then it is YOUR FAULT if you fail to hit your own estimate!
All that said, there are cases where providing an estimate is unreasonable. On one end of the scale, if a manager is asking for very accurate down-to-the-hour estimates on vague but somewhat small tasks, then it's asking for too much (almost more work estimating doing the damn thing). On the other end of the scale, if it's some grand idea for a giant project with no plan yet, you'll be pulling figures from your ass just as much as he's pulling the project plan out his ass... but it is what it is. Just go big.
A lot of it is just about setting expectations. If you give them high estimates, then you're more likely to meet or exceed their expectations. They may dislike the figure at first, but when you come in under budget they will be very happy and forget all about how high the estimate started out. A high estimate is not "padding", it's setting expectations that you can meet (see the maze estimate above... use "max" and you'll be able to meet or beat your estimate every time, which is what all involved really want out of your estimate).
Scalar vector graphics and sound are cool, but Flash was not wonderful technology.
There was a lot of great stuff in it. ActionScript was WAY ahead of javascript for a long time, implementing fairly cutting edge ECMAScript. The old interface was very simple and very easy to use with keyframes and animation and sound syncing etc etc... if that's what you wanted to make, it was pretty great.
Flash was foremost a huge CPU waster.
It grew into that, and really only once it was abused in awful ways. Simple stuff used very little CPU, and by that I mean P133 level CPU could handle it just fine.
IMO, the single biggest factor / thing that should have been done different : the plugin/player should have been open sourced. I'm not going to claim it would have solved all their problems, but things like dragging their feet on 64bit support for YEARS would have been solved, and I'm sure it would have got some assistance in other ways, and probably some forks for good measure, and wider platform support. DRM is a large part of why this didn't happen, and it's the second thing I would have change (they shouldn't have including that in it; let someone else implement that in actionscript and add some way to optimize actionscript better, for example).
On the HTML5 side, we're re-living some of the same mistakes. Where's the easy to use controls for what a page can do, and what I can dynamically enable/disable?
The only reason adblock (and similar) work is because ads are still counting impressions the same way they always have. It's be easy to change that technically by either: a) deliver the ads proxied through the site, so they are sourced from the same IP. b) deliver the site through the ad network. IE. treat the ad provider as a CDN and deliver the entire page content through it, and let them integrate the ads.
"a" would make impressions difficult to track (no secure way to do so). "b" would require site operators to give up more control, but they'd also gain a CDN for free, and they could use that for caching as well to greatly reduce their own bandwidth. I don't know why this hasn't been tried.
In any case, we need proper controls, not filters.
However, the graph in the article is a ratio between the toxic dose (based on LD50) and the typical human intake.
The median lethal dose (LD50) for a human of 75kg when the amount taken is taken all at once is apparently 6 liters of water (ref: http://www.compoundchem.com/wp... ). I don't know what it is if you spread that over 16 hours (typical waking day) etc etc.
The typical human intake... well, here's part of where their stat/graph go wonky. What's the timeframe? I usually chug about 1/4 - 1/2 a liter, then I don't drink for a while, and I usually have a nice healthy 6-8 glasses a day. Ratio between normal daily intake and the 6 liters is really low - like heroin low!
How much water can one drink in an hour before hitting the LD50? I don't know, but I'm guessing it's 8-10 liters. How much does one typically drink in an hour? That's going to vary wildly. On the high side, if it's 1 liter, then it's tying esctacy in their graph. On the low side, if it's 1/8 liter, then water is still TWICE as bad as cannabis (around 80 vs 150).
Hehhehheh... I was wondering too, and how many other things qualify for that... I'm guessing quite a few. Of the top of my head: * a pound of blue ray movies (or dvds, or cds, or vinyl) * any tablet (kindle fire, ipad, galaxy pad, etc) * any phone or ipod or wearable mp3 player * headphones * most laptops * most musical instruments * makeup/face creams/etc * all bra's and panties, and most other articles of clothing * bicycles that cost about $1000 or more (which is most decent ones)
Surprisingly, more expensive stuff tends to be ok. For example, Samsung 55" 4k UHD LED TV = $1099 and weighs about 44lb; At 44lb, it'd have to cost over $2200 to hit $50/lb. Or their curved 65" 4k UHD, which is $2197... but it's 70lb! I tried a couple other categories, and that trend seems to hold somewhat well (ex. really good speakers end up weighing a lot more; cheap ones are too cheap to qualify; mid-range ones *may* qualify).
No... but it is like labeling the pipes your store sells as "hash pipes". Some stores (possibly only in certain states, especially now that pot is legalized in some states) will happily sell you bongs and small glass pipes and bubblers and one hitters etc etc etc so long as you do not refer to them by any of their cannabis-associated names. Some go a step further, and will ask you to leave the store if you do refer to them by those names, pretending that "they are not in the business of selling paraphernalia". This is a WHOLE LOT like that (though I think the store may have got in trouble with the law _before_ instituting that policy).
But yeah, they also have some severe restrictions on what they're not allowed to carry, and they err way on the side of caution. If you told them "this is a block of lead, and I plan to melt it for bullets", they may well refuse, and by some legal interpretations they might *have* to.
Item 780, section B-6: Carrier will transport small-arms ammunition when packed and labeled in compliance with local, state and federal law, and the Hazardous Materials section of this Service Guide. Ammunition is an explosive and must be shipped separately as hazardous materials. You agree not to ship loaded firearms or firearms with ammunition in the same package.
So I'm damn sure the implied use for the lead wouldn't keep it from being shipped. There may be other reasons, but nothing due to bullets.
However, you can't ship: Money (and, apparently, anything like it) Alcohol Porn postage stamps letters, with or without stamps valuable paper of any kind fresh food Articles of extraordinary value (extraordinary value is defined as items valued in excess of $50 per pound per package). artwork film, photos, negatives, etc jewelry tobacco products (unless shipped from and to a licensed dealer/distributor)
I found a few of those to be kinda surprising, but almost all of them tend to fall under some loose umbrella of "stuff you could use in place of money". The other excludes make sense in other ways... like "More than 100 pounds of NA3178, Smokeless Powder for small arms on any motor vehicle" and other "we don't want to blow up our drivers and the neighborhood around them" type stuff; or fresh food, where they probably just don't want rotting food attracting animals and bugs and generally being nasty.
They also won't ship firearms, unless it is from and to a dealer/distributor. This is where I think the gunsmithing machine hits a grey area. I'm 99.9% sure there wouldn't have been any problem at all if they just said it was a CNC mill, which it is. If it can pop out a complete firearm upon arrival and being plugged in, then it's just like sending the firearm (it can't do that, but they don't know that, and it says it'll make guns).
... I realize you think this isn't the case, and that all of your communications are being mined and monitored (illegally, no less), and since proving a negative is impossible, I won't be able to help in that regard.
While my thoughts on the general matter at hand fall somewhere between daveschroeder's and the AC, I feel it's a bit insincere to imply that all US communications are NOT being monitored at all unless a warrant is involved. As far as metadata goes, we *know* they are; Snowden leaks have shown it; it's been confirmed by multiple sources; it happening isn't really a question.
Are they logging the content of all communications, or monitoring it, or analyzing it, etc? I don't know. Maybe that's what you are referring to. AC will probably still argue with you, but being more accurate and honest about recent events would lend your argument a bit more credibility.
What isn't true? That water can kill you in high doses, or that the ratio between toxic dose and normal intake would rank it fairly high on their charts? If you drink enough water within a relatively short time frame, you will die. Look it up. You have to drink a lot, but it's not an obscene or unreachable goal, though you would probably be very uncomfortable.
Nutmeg's ratio wouldn't come close on their chart. Sure, it's sold in quantities that *may* kill a human, maybe a child, but the regular dose is a light dusting of it. It's overdose ratio is probably up there near cannabis.
Hahahahahaha! $4.99/month for what is little better than radio, (which as far as I know is still free,)...
Satellite radio (SiriusXM) packages start at $9.99/month and go up to $18.99/month. If you want to listen to Howard Stern, or any sports, or their up to the minute traffic and weather, or get any of the 70 stations not included with the cheaper plan, then you need the more expensive option. If you want to listen to sports and that includes both NFL and any other one (MLB/NHL/NBA/etc), then you need the most expensive package.
When the two were competing (Serius and XM), the lineup differentiation made sense. Now that they're one company, it just looks like they're milking it for every dime they can get: $9.99 = 80 channels that are essentially those in common between the two $14.99 = 140 channels from the old lineup (either the Sirius lineup (howard stern, NFL, NASCAR) or the XM lineup (MLB/NBA/NHL)). $18.99 = 150 channels with the combination of both of the special features.
$4.99 for ad free pandora seems about right. Granted, I think they should all be cheaper, but I rarely listen to anything.
This probably holds true for local VPN providers or those run by the government itself. But any service outside Iran would see no reason to cooperate with the Iranian government.
Money. They are businesses, therefore they want/need money. There is little risk in this. If the (Iranian) user complains or sues, to whom will they complain? The user was breaking the law.
In general, you're probably right. However, if the Iranian government wanted, they could simply block access to that outside VPN that was not working with them, thus artificially limiting the users choice to those that abide. It's really not a far stretch of the imagination to think that may be happening.
and the children have unlimited time to get around it.
Someone really needs to define "children". This conversation is an absolute mess without defining the terms we're using (include a description of the various levels of "bad" content as well).
you have already "lost" already and I don't get it how it's really different than 20 years ago. I mean, was goatse so different 20 years ago or what the fuck? bbs's were full of xxx pics and texts too, raunchier than what you would read in hustler.
I was around and of prime age when BBS's were popular, and I had two computers, but we didn't have a modem, and I didn't see anyone that had one. This has little to fuckall to do with this conversation:-)
How was it different back then? In that, there IS a huge difference. The entry age to someone getting access to these areas was MUCH different. The percentage of children under 8 that had unfettered and unrestricted access to BBS's was nearly, if not absolutely, zero. Today, the percentage of children under 8 that have unfettered and unrestricted access to the internet, often via a phone, ipod, or tablet, is significant**.
** I don't know the exact figure, but I have eyeballs. I can see enough kids with those things that I know it's non-zero.
Combine those two, and there's a solid case for internet filters. Add to that the idea of "surprise" links or posts, such as cat videos that end up being dickspin, and there is plenty of reason to have, at a minimum, some basic filters on all items with access to the internet that your kid uses.
Lastly, why the hell is everyone shying away from the actual question? Who cares about the motivation?!? Maybe he wants to sell it to people he knows? Or maybe he just wants to know what's out there for some other reason (to build something else off of those tools)? Why do you care so much about the absolutely useless part of the question, and why are you ignoring the core question?
Obama said,"The first time that an attack takes place in which it turns out that we had a lead and we couldn't follow up on it, the public's going to demand answers."
That's utter BS. * If it's some local law enforcement types, they've already been unable to do this in a timely manor for ages. The public doesn't demand answers because the answer is clear - the data was thoroughly encrypted. * On the other end of the spectrum, if it's something we're not allowed to know about (NSA level terrorist stuff), then the public won't know about it to ask any of those questions.
Some edge cases in between those: * it's still high level, but the public does know the NSA knows... then they can clearly get a warrant and trace the source. They also have the most massive amounts of cpu power and maths to throw at the problem, so if anyone will get to the root, they will (assuming it's something they have full authority to rampage after full force). * If it's still local law level, but pretty important, they can also escalate and get warrants and get the FBI/etc involved as needed.
In either case, a backdoor doesn't solve the problem if said person is using something that doesn't have a backdoor (or has one unknown to the agency working the case). Backdoors have been identified (and originated in the NSA) before, and none of those helped all the normal cases (state/local). We have no idea if that helped any other cases that were top secret (and/or questionably legal), or to what extent... but that doesn't matter with regards to Obama's statement because we, the public, won't be demanding answers if we don't know about it.
Besides, if he's only worried about saving face, that's an awful reason for anything.
How come Netflix can do it for 7.99 a month without ads?
Because publishers charge a higher royalty for recent series. I'm under the impression that apart from Netflix's own original series, there is a delay of months before a new series is made available on Netflix.
Let's see.... who owns Hulu? Twenty-First Century FOX, Walk Disney Co, and NBCUniversal (owned by Comcast). Gee, wonder how they're able to get series faster?
Who owns Netflix? Publicly traded Netflix does, and it was started by two guys (Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings).
I'm not saying any of them is perfect or anything like that, but comparing Hulu to other services like Netflix or Amazon Instant Video etc is just not possible. There's a significant problem regarding media distribution rights and licensing, and it just keeps getting worse. Companies have tried to setup DVD players and stream that and got shut down; There's the recent place that had an individual antenna for each subscriber and the streamed OTA (over the air) digital TV, and got shut down; Netflix would love to have loads more shows and movies, as would Amazon I'm sure, and as would lots of companies, but the various media companies keep that from happening.
IMO, hulu, as it currently exists, is only allowed to live because it reduces piracy and keeps the likes of Netflix at bay (makes them look bad.... skim some of that money for themselves). The various players and point to Hulu and say, "see, if it was viable then this would be doing better and offering all shows for free and 100% ad supported, or vice-versa and 100% pay supported".
In addition to all that, Comcast was one of the companies with the biggest Netflix conflicts (network stuff), and yet they own a part of Hulu... how is that fair competition?
Sorry ramone, and all those like you. IMO, this/. post thoroughly proved your point. The majority of posts are from people trying to argue that knowledge of fundamental concepts are not needed in order for them to do their job; they missed the point entirely.
First, it must be re-stated that you're looking for a senior developer/architect. This isn't someone who can just get their own job done (give them a complete spec, and they tappity-type-tap and write the implementation), it's a position that must have a solid understanding of many fundamentals, and the ability to think and combine those and problem solve and make the spec that someone else may use.
I'd argue that, when hiring for this level of position, they should know many of the things brought up throughout this/. page: * basic PKI principals * linked list implementation from scratch (pseudo code is acceptable) * basic understanding of sorting algorithms (ex. bubblesort) * how CIDR masks work. If they don't know this offhand, then ability to pick up the concept quickly once explained. * bits, bytes, kilobytes conversions * basic SQL syntax * basic DB concepts (ex. normalization) * basic understanding of binary trees * knowledge of some raw protocol (nothing specific, but they should probably have picked up a few of these in their years of work. Examples: http, smtp, ftp, memcached, imap, dns, etc). * waterfall vs agile etc * basic storage concepts/implementations (RAID levels, LVM, networked filesystems, distributed filesystems/locking, snapshots, copy-on-write, etc) etc etc etc...
Some folks even implied that appropriate candidates may not do well in the interview when asked questions that make them think on their feet (implying they may have social or communication issues). If one can not do so, then how are they appropriate for a systems architect position?
Missing any one of these wouldn't be a deal breaker, but if you're hiring an architect, he needs to understand the materials he's working with; and if you're hiring a *systems* architect, he'd better know what he's working with.
That was a bit much just to say, "I agree". Good luck out there.
works both ways. but of course, during interviews, it never really does work both ways;(
Change that (as the candidate), and you're quite likely to get more job offers. In every interview I've ever had, even from back when I was a kid getting a paper route, the interviewer asked if I had any questions (sometimes with the suffix of "about the job" or "about our company" etc). Come prepared! The interviewer had to come up with all their questions and concerns and such, and you should too! When you do, you'll seem very smart (knowing what it is that you don't know is more important than recalling facts, and it shows an strong interest in your career and quality of your employer).
As to the general knowledge questions (the replies here made me feel quite good about myself), those in TFS aren't bad. The general process of private/public key encryption is some very old and well defined maths. If they don't know anything about it, then they don't know anything about that whole subject area. That may or may not rule them out for certain projects/positions. Maybe a follow up request something like, "here's a computer and the internet; I'll come back in 20 minutes and will ask you the same question again". For the question regarding sending something sensitive, that could have any number of answers that could be appropriate... how they solve that problem is a good example of what you'll be getting. If it's, "paste the thing into excel and clicky-clicky and send them the password via SMS", then that speaks volumes about that candidate. Exchanging information securely is hard (applying encryption correctly is the easy part).
But that's exactly the point, do the scripts really need to lug about support for stuff that maybe one, maybe two people actually use?...
:-) This topic is perfect for/. because of the complete lack of scope.
When you refer to "scripts", what level/layer are you referring to? I don't even think there is a well defined naming convention for that (ex. something like an OSI model with respect to configuration of hardware).
Given the networking example...
On the GUI level, there are loads of interfaces, many specialized, to aid in configuring the network. Some of them are protocol-specific, such as various VPN utilities, kppp and other ppp utilities, dial up interfaces, and a bunch of wifi ones too. Many of those are somewhat modular, with a backend/libs, command line interface, gnome/gtk interface, qt/kde interface, and possibly others (curses, xfce, tk, etc). That said, there is a primary target within this cadre: Network Manager and all its cousins.
On the other end of things, within the kernel, there's loads of drivers and standardized ways for those to interface with the various kernel subsystems. Those drivers necessarily have a wide variety of options... that's kinda the point. The vast majority of those can be compiled into the kernel, built as modules, or not built at all. This layer is fairly well defined as there is a clear separation of user space and kernel space; this ends at the first layer that provides a user space API (and this could be considered to constitute two layers... kernel space and user space of that... think OSI layer 1 and 2).
On that kernel level (similar to OSI media layers), I don't think we have a problem. This is, at least partially, due to the monolithic nature of the kernel and it's management by a benevolent dictator. A few comments here have mentioned support for old hardware, but I don't think they are referring to the drivers themselves nor the kernel... they're likely referring to something further up in user space. IMO, if the question is posed here, the answer is "No, Linux is not becoming too complex".
On the top end of the GUI side, I'd also argue that, "No, Linux is not becoming too complex". Yes, it can be a quagmire of various utilities at times, and some work better than others, but that *should* be fine. Hell, that's the only way to quiet those that complain about supporting all that old hardware - just snip it out of the GUI utility or hide it in advanced areas. I would never want to enforce a rule that these must all go through some specific middle ware, though that's really the part we should all be talking about.
So... the middle. This thread referenced "/etc/network/interfaces". That does NOT exist on all distributes (ex. redhat based systems don't have this). Personally, I like/etc/network/interfaces, but it's a good example of fragmentation of "standard" ways/interfaces to configure the kernel networking subsystem. Is it bad that debian and redhat both do it different? IMO, the "becoming too complex" question would imply that this is NOT bad, since this has been this way FOR A LONG LONG LONG TIME, and I'd agree that this amount of differentiation is ok and even good, but this could easily be argued is and firmly into the grey area.
The part that I have very large concerns with is what is currently happening with the low-level just above kernel... specifically, systemd and its related parts. Networking is an example here, as one of its goals is to provide one unified/common way to configure the network.... but doesn't that already exist!?!? It's called the kernel! On the other hand, maybe it will prove to be a useful shim? The fact that a single framework is going in above the kernel, which some direct ties to the kernel, and is casting a very wide net in terms of things it is, or can, control (logging, network, dhcp, login, init, sessions, mounts, consoles/vte, timedated/ntp, devices/udevd)... we'd better hope and pray it's designed well cause everything and the kitchen sink will soon have direct dependencies on the interfaces it's implementing.
Any spikes will be pretty easy to see. Just put a cap on it and bust those that are exceeding it. Bonus, you'll probably ID a lot of existing growers/etc.
As far as the basic idea of free minimal amounts of electricity to the poor, that sounds like a very good thing. Heck, just give everyone their first N kw/month for free.
Why should I have to alt+rclick, dig into the window manager settings, find a theme, etc, etc etc. when XFCE could do what every other decent UI does - PROVIDE A GRABBABLE WINDOW BORDER OUT OF THE BOX.
While I agree with the sentiment, I think you're confusing XFCE and XUbuntu. The distribution, XUbuntu, chose the default theme. For 12.04, that's Greybird, which has 1px wide borders. I've honestly been quite annoyed with that, and I had tried other themes in the past (much much older installs), and just learned to deal with it. HOWEVER, I just tried the theme's again, and "Default-4.6", which I assume is the default XFCE theme, has 5px wide borders... those seem just right to me.
So, complain to XUbuntu. XFCE provides a default theme that fits your default needs. In addition, it's REALLY easy to change your theme. If they had set it to the 5px wide one, I'm sure someone else would be complaining because the border is taking up all their precious screen space and why should they have to go into a menu to... blah blah blah. The fact is, there is an easy to use settings manager, and it's a couple click to change it. THey're not burying settings like so many other apps these days (gnome, firefox, chrome, etc).
Slashdot Mirror
I picked a really poor phrase there. See the comment one above mine: "I know I've seen systems that use sensors you mount around the edge of a whiteboard and special markers to track where you are drawing and reproduce it electronically on remote monitors"
In those cases, they are one way systems. You can setup another going the other direction, but it's not a shared whiteboard. The remote end can't tell your markers to draw on your board.
There are ones that use a projector and fake makers (ie. a marker shapped IR LED), but then the orig question fully applies - what do you use? There are certain makes/models of these things, and they are often incompatible.
SD expansion is only an issue if you don't get enough memory in the first place.
Maybe most people don't care, but there are many very very good reasons to have this feature.
My personal favorite is that, with recent android builds, you can no longer plug your phone in and have it show up as a mass storage device (without rooting/etc). If you want to actually access the filesystem where your data is stored, then you have to take out the SD card and use a reader - at least that workaround is available.
Blackberry's Z10 has a replaceable battery and few complained that it's a thick phone. It's certainly not razor thin either, but you can easily allow the user to replace the battery and have a very useably thin phone.
The z10 is actually thinner than an iPhone 4 or 4s, neither of which had removable batteries.
The iPhone 5 is only 0.3mm thinner than the Samsung Galaxy S4, which had a removable batter.
I was curious of the general size comparisons regarding thickness, so I looked these up:
Samsung Galaxy S6 edge : 7 mm
Samsung Galaxy S6 : 6.8 mm
Samsung Galaxy S5 : 8.1 mm
Samsung Galaxy S4 : 7.9 mm
Samsung Galaxy S3 : 7.6 mm (CDMA for verizon or sprint)
Samsung Galaxy S3 : 8.6 mm (GSM/others)
iPhone 6 Plus : 7.1 mm
iPhone 6 : 6.9 mm
iPhone 5 : 7.6 mm (same for 5s)
iPhone 4 : 9.3 mm (same for 4s)
Blackberry Z3 : 9.3 mm
Blackberry Z30 : 9.4 mm
Blackberry Z10 : 9 mm
Motorola Moto X : 10 mm
HTC One - M9 : 9.6 mm
HTC One - E8 : 9.9 mm
LG G3 : 8.9 mm
Nexus 6 : 10.1 mm
Lumia 635 : 9.2 mm
Lumia 532 : 11.6 mm
Maybe using a non-removable battery made it possible fore Samsung to go a little thinner, but it's very little on something that's already quite thin. I'd suspect the restriction has more to do with other things, or at least a combo of reasons, such as:
* having no sd card support meant access to that was not needed
* water/dust proofing is a lot easier if the back is not user serviceable
* move to metal frame probably brought some limitations (or challenges). The old plastic backs were simple to pop off/on without (much) damage.
I'm sure they had their reasons. I'm also sure that I'd rather have SD card support and an easily replaceable battery. However, if the feature in balance were waterproofing, I could be convinced to give up the battery and sd card.
Seriously? Digital whiteboard? How does the other side touch it?
In this day and age of tablet ubiquity, it's the ONE THING they should be nailing perfectly. There should be a couple "standard" protocols or apps for this (though I won't hold my breath... the main text chat clients/protocols don't interoperate, so who would expect anything more complicated to work).
Every time I go to look for a whiteboard solution (networked and multi-user), I'm amazed that the old solutions are no longer around, and there's new solutions, and the places that I'd expect to have grown to cover this feature (existing and popular chat clients like pidgin, skype, hangouts, jitsi, etc) still don't have it.
The direct answer to TFS's question is not all that interesting. Why it's not an obvious couple answers is, IMO, interesting/peculiar.
Hate replying to myself, but I hadn't RTFA before posting. I'm not entirely against what they're saying/proposing. It's a different way to do things, rather than just some folks whining and complaining and avoiding estimates for stupid reasons.
Holy crap! Are people actually buying into this BS?
Software coding/design is similar to solving a maze -- you just can't give an accurate estimate how long it will take to solve the maze.
WTF? Yes, you can give an ESTIMATE on how long it'll take to solve a maze. Go get a book of mazes; Do 10 of them; Time yourself for each one; You now have min, max, and average times for a maze of that size/complexity. Next time someone shows you a maze, you can make an educated guess about how large/complex it is, then give your best case, worst case, and normal/average estimates. Do the same for programming.
Estimates are good for repetitive or non-creative tasks...
They're also good for creative tasks. I went to college with a major in fine art and worked for years as a monument engraver (etching portraits/landscapes/etc on tombstones). If someone asked about how long it'd take to etc a 5x7 portrait, I'd have a VERY accurate estimate for them. Is that not creative enough for you? How about every single project for every single class for every year of art school? ALL of those had timelines, and every student became quite good at estimating how long each project would take so they could get them all done on time. And you could ask most of them (at least those with higher than a B average) how long it would take them to do a certain thing (ex. sculpt a bust in clay from a live model) and, if they were familiar with that medium, then they could give you a very good estimate.
Estimation in the software world is a scam perpetuated by managers and management to get developers to work extra hard.
If management is asking the devs for their estimate, then how in the hell is it management fault for any of those timelines? Let me put this another way... devs, BE SMARTER. You've been asked for estimates on more than one occasion. Most that are new to development will low ball (stating a best case estimate). If/When you do that, you're just setting yourself up to fail. The best outcome will be that you are on time, and every other outcome sucks for all involved.
If you're not good at estimating, just try, come up with your figure,then double or triple it. If you always come in under the estimate, then you manager may start adjusting your estimates... who cares? Let them. It's their fault if you don't meet their manipulated figure. However, if you're not giving a large enough estimate in order to get your work done, then it is YOUR FAULT if you fail to hit your own estimate!
All that said, there are cases where providing an estimate is unreasonable. On one end of the scale, if a manager is asking for very accurate down-to-the-hour estimates on vague but somewhat small tasks, then it's asking for too much (almost more work estimating doing the damn thing). On the other end of the scale, if it's some grand idea for a giant project with no plan yet, you'll be pulling figures from your ass just as much as he's pulling the project plan out his ass... but it is what it is. Just go big.
A lot of it is just about setting expectations. If you give them high estimates, then you're more likely to meet or exceed their expectations. They may dislike the figure at first, but when you come in under budget they will be very happy and forget all about how high the estimate started out. A high estimate is not "padding", it's setting expectations that you can meet (see the maze estimate above... use "max" and you'll be able to meet or beat your estimate every time, which is what all involved really want out of your estimate).
Scalar vector graphics and sound are cool, but Flash was not wonderful technology.
There was a lot of great stuff in it. ActionScript was WAY ahead of javascript for a long time, implementing fairly cutting edge ECMAScript.
The old interface was very simple and very easy to use with keyframes and animation and sound syncing etc etc... if that's what you wanted to make, it was pretty great.
Flash was foremost a huge CPU waster.
It grew into that, and really only once it was abused in awful ways. Simple stuff used very little CPU, and by that I mean P133 level CPU could handle it just fine.
IMO, the single biggest factor / thing that should have been done different : the plugin/player should have been open sourced. I'm not going to claim it would have solved all their problems, but things like dragging their feet on 64bit support for YEARS would have been solved, and I'm sure it would have got some assistance in other ways, and probably some forks for good measure, and wider platform support. DRM is a large part of why this didn't happen, and it's the second thing I would have change (they shouldn't have including that in it; let someone else implement that in actionscript and add some way to optimize actionscript better, for example).
On the HTML5 side, we're re-living some of the same mistakes. Where's the easy to use controls for what a page can do, and what I can dynamically enable/disable?
The only reason adblock (and similar) work is because ads are still counting impressions the same way they always have. It's be easy to change that technically by either:
a) deliver the ads proxied through the site, so they are sourced from the same IP.
b) deliver the site through the ad network. IE. treat the ad provider as a CDN and deliver the entire page content through it, and let them integrate the ads.
"a" would make impressions difficult to track (no secure way to do so).
"b" would require site operators to give up more control, but they'd also gain a CDN for free, and they could use that for caching as well to greatly reduce their own bandwidth. I don't know why this hasn't been tried.
In any case, we need proper controls, not filters.
Inside of kids, it's too moist to use one.
FTFY. Also, It'd void your warranty and trigger the liquid contact indicators.
You are correct about nutmeg.
But water is not near the ratio to kill you.
The LD50 of water is, admittedly, high (90, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M...)
However, the graph in the article is a ratio between the toxic dose (based on LD50) and the typical human intake.
The median lethal dose (LD50) for a human of 75kg when the amount taken is taken all at once is apparently 6 liters of water (ref: http://www.compoundchem.com/wp... ). I don't know what it is if you spread that over 16 hours (typical waking day) etc etc.
The typical human intake... well, here's part of where their stat/graph go wonky. What's the timeframe? I usually chug about 1/4 - 1/2 a liter, then I don't drink for a while, and I usually have a nice healthy 6-8 glasses a day. Ratio between normal daily intake and the 6 liters is really low - like heroin low!
How much water can one drink in an hour before hitting the LD50? I don't know, but I'm guessing it's 8-10 liters.
How much does one typically drink in an hour? That's going to vary wildly.
On the high side, if it's 1 liter, then it's tying esctacy in their graph.
On the low side, if it's 1/8 liter, then water is still TWICE as bad as cannabis (around 80 vs 150).
The point is, their statistic sucks.
Is the mill in question over $50/lb?
Hehhehheh... I was wondering too, and how many other things qualify for that... I'm guessing quite a few. Of the top of my head:
* a pound of blue ray movies (or dvds, or cds, or vinyl)
* any tablet (kindle fire, ipad, galaxy pad, etc)
* any phone or ipod or wearable mp3 player
* headphones
* most laptops
* most musical instruments
* makeup/face creams/etc
* all bra's and panties, and most other articles of clothing
* bicycles that cost about $1000 or more (which is most decent ones)
Surprisingly, more expensive stuff tends to be ok. For example, Samsung 55" 4k UHD LED TV = $1099 and weighs about 44lb; At 44lb, it'd have to cost over $2200 to hit $50/lb. Or their curved 65" 4k UHD, which is $2197... but it's 70lb! I tried a couple other categories, and that trend seems to hold somewhat well (ex. really good speakers end up weighing a lot more; cheap ones are too cheap to qualify; mid-range ones *may* qualify).
FedEx should be denying most shipments!
It's like telling police officers you smoke weed.
No... but it is like labeling the pipes your store sells as "hash pipes". Some stores (possibly only in certain states, especially now that pot is legalized in some states) will happily sell you bongs and small glass pipes and bubblers and one hitters etc etc etc so long as you do not refer to them by any of their cannabis-associated names. Some go a step further, and will ask you to leave the store if you do refer to them by those names, pretending that "they are not in the business of selling paraphernalia". This is a WHOLE LOT like that (though I think the store may have got in trouble with the law _before_ instituting that policy).
But yeah, they also have some severe restrictions on what they're not allowed to carry, and they err way on the side of caution. If you told them "this is a block of lead, and I plan to melt it for bullets", they may well refuse, and by some legal interpretations they might *have* to.
http://www.fedex.com/us/freigh...
Item 780, section B-6:
Carrier will transport small-arms ammunition when packed and labeled in compliance with local, state and federal law, and the Hazardous Materials section of this Service Guide. Ammunition is an explosive and must be shipped separately as hazardous materials. You agree not to ship loaded firearms or firearms with ammunition in the same package.
So I'm damn sure the implied use for the lead wouldn't keep it from being shipped. There may be other reasons, but nothing due to bullets.
However, you can't ship:
Money (and, apparently, anything like it)
Alcohol
Porn
postage stamps
letters, with or without stamps
valuable paper of any kind
fresh food
Articles of extraordinary value (extraordinary value is defined as items valued in excess of $50 per pound per package).
artwork
film, photos, negatives, etc
jewelry
tobacco products (unless shipped from and to a licensed dealer/distributor)
I found a few of those to be kinda surprising, but almost all of them tend to fall under some loose umbrella of "stuff you could use in place of money". The other excludes make sense in other ways... like "More than 100 pounds of NA3178, Smokeless Powder for small arms on any motor vehicle" and other "we don't want to blow up our drivers and the neighborhood around them" type stuff; or fresh food, where they probably just don't want rotting food attracting animals and bugs and generally being nasty.
They also won't ship firearms, unless it is from and to a dealer/distributor. This is where I think the gunsmithing machine hits a grey area. I'm 99.9% sure there wouldn't have been any problem at all if they just said it was a CNC mill, which it is. If it can pop out a complete firearm upon arrival and being plugged in, then it's just like sending the firearm (it can't do that, but they don't know that, and it says it'll make guns).
... I realize you think this isn't the case, and that all of your communications are being mined and monitored (illegally, no less), and since proving a negative is impossible, I won't be able to help in that regard.
While my thoughts on the general matter at hand fall somewhere between daveschroeder's and the AC, I feel it's a bit insincere to imply that all US communications are NOT being monitored at all unless a warrant is involved. As far as metadata goes, we *know* they are; Snowden leaks have shown it; it's been confirmed by multiple sources; it happening isn't really a question.
Are they logging the content of all communications, or monitoring it, or analyzing it, etc? I don't know. Maybe that's what you are referring to. AC will probably still argue with you, but being more accurate and honest about recent events would lend your argument a bit more credibility.
That's simply not true.
What isn't true? That water can kill you in high doses, or that the ratio between toxic dose and normal intake would rank it fairly high on their charts?
If you drink enough water within a relatively short time frame, you will die. Look it up. You have to drink a lot, but it's not an obscene or unreachable goal, though you would probably be very uncomfortable.
Nutmeg's ratio wouldn't come close on their chart. Sure, it's sold in quantities that *may* kill a human, maybe a child, but the regular dose is a light dusting of it. It's overdose ratio is probably up there near cannabis.
they all knew sony's penchant for proprietary formats was a bad idea - they just didn't expect them to be so successful.
How are CDROM, DVD, and BD more proprietary than what Nintendo and Sega used at the time?!?!
Hahahahahaha! $4.99/month for what is little better than radio, (which as far as I know is still free,)...
Satellite radio (SiriusXM) packages start at $9.99/month and go up to $18.99/month. If you want to listen to Howard Stern, or any sports, or their up to the minute traffic and weather, or get any of the 70 stations not included with the cheaper plan, then you need the more expensive option. If you want to listen to sports and that includes both NFL and any other one (MLB/NHL/NBA/etc), then you need the most expensive package.
When the two were competing (Serius and XM), the lineup differentiation made sense. Now that they're one company, it just looks like they're milking it for every dime they can get:
$9.99 = 80 channels that are essentially those in common between the two
$14.99 = 140 channels from the old lineup (either the Sirius lineup (howard stern, NFL, NASCAR) or the XM lineup (MLB/NBA/NHL)).
$18.99 = 150 channels with the combination of both of the special features.
$4.99 for ad free pandora seems about right. Granted, I think they should all be cheaper, but I rarely listen to anything.
This probably holds true for local VPN providers or those run by the government itself. But any service outside Iran would see no reason to cooperate with the Iranian government.
Money.
They are businesses, therefore they want/need money.
There is little risk in this. If the (Iranian) user complains or sues, to whom will they complain? The user was breaking the law.
In general, you're probably right. However, if the Iranian government wanted, they could simply block access to that outside VPN that was not working with them, thus artificially limiting the users choice to those that abide. It's really not a far stretch of the imagination to think that may be happening.
and the children have unlimited time to get around it.
Someone really needs to define "children". This conversation is an absolute mess without defining the terms we're using (include a description of the various levels of "bad" content as well).
you have already "lost" already and I don't get it how it's really different than 20 years ago. I mean, was goatse so different 20 years ago or what the fuck? bbs's were full of xxx pics and texts too, raunchier than what you would read in hustler.
I was around and of prime age when BBS's were popular, and I had two computers, but we didn't have a modem, and I didn't see anyone that had one. This has little to fuckall to do with this conversation :-)
How was it different back then? In that, there IS a huge difference. The entry age to someone getting access to these areas was MUCH different. The percentage of children under 8 that had unfettered and unrestricted access to BBS's was nearly, if not absolutely, zero. Today, the percentage of children under 8 that have unfettered and unrestricted access to the internet, often via a phone, ipod, or tablet, is significant**.
** I don't know the exact figure, but I have eyeballs. I can see enough kids with those things that I know it's non-zero.
Combine those two, and there's a solid case for internet filters. Add to that the idea of "surprise" links or posts, such as cat videos that end up being dickspin, and there is plenty of reason to have, at a minimum, some basic filters on all items with access to the internet that your kid uses.
Lastly, why the hell is everyone shying away from the actual question? Who cares about the motivation?!? Maybe he wants to sell it to people he knows? Or maybe he just wants to know what's out there for some other reason (to build something else off of those tools)? Why do you care so much about the absolutely useless part of the question, and why are you ignoring the core question?
Obama said,"The first time that an attack takes place in which it turns out that we had a lead and we couldn't follow up on it, the public's going to demand answers."
That's utter BS.
* If it's some local law enforcement types, they've already been unable to do this in a timely manor for ages. The public doesn't demand answers because the answer is clear - the data was thoroughly encrypted.
* On the other end of the spectrum, if it's something we're not allowed to know about (NSA level terrorist stuff), then the public won't know about it to ask any of those questions.
Some edge cases in between those:
* it's still high level, but the public does know the NSA knows... then they can clearly get a warrant and trace the source. They also have the most massive amounts of cpu power and maths to throw at the problem, so if anyone will get to the root, they will (assuming it's something they have full authority to rampage after full force).
* If it's still local law level, but pretty important, they can also escalate and get warrants and get the FBI/etc involved as needed.
In either case, a backdoor doesn't solve the problem if said person is using something that doesn't have a backdoor (or has one unknown to the agency working the case). Backdoors have been identified (and originated in the NSA) before, and none of those helped all the normal cases (state/local). We have no idea if that helped any other cases that were top secret (and/or questionably legal), or to what extent... but that doesn't matter with regards to Obama's statement because we, the public, won't be demanding answers if we don't know about it.
Besides, if he's only worried about saving face, that's an awful reason for anything.
How come Netflix can do it for 7.99 a month without ads?
Because publishers charge a higher royalty for recent series. I'm under the impression that apart from Netflix's own original series, there is a delay of months before a new series is made available on Netflix.
Let's see.... who owns Hulu? Twenty-First Century FOX, Walk Disney Co, and NBCUniversal (owned by Comcast). Gee, wonder how they're able to get series faster?
Who owns Netflix? Publicly traded Netflix does, and it was started by two guys (Marc Randolph and Reed Hastings).
I'm not saying any of them is perfect or anything like that, but comparing Hulu to other services like Netflix or Amazon Instant Video etc is just not possible. There's a significant problem regarding media distribution rights and licensing, and it just keeps getting worse. Companies have tried to setup DVD players and stream that and got shut down; There's the recent place that had an individual antenna for each subscriber and the streamed OTA (over the air) digital TV, and got shut down; Netflix would love to have loads more shows and movies, as would Amazon I'm sure, and as would lots of companies, but the various media companies keep that from happening.
IMO, hulu, as it currently exists, is only allowed to live because it reduces piracy and keeps the likes of Netflix at bay (makes them look bad.... skim some of that money for themselves). The various players and point to Hulu and say, "see, if it was viable then this would be doing better and offering all shows for free and 100% ad supported, or vice-versa and 100% pay supported".
In addition to all that, Comcast was one of the companies with the biggest Netflix conflicts (network stuff), and yet they own a part of Hulu... how is that fair competition?
Sorry ramone, and all those like you. IMO, this /. post thoroughly proved your point. The majority of posts are from people trying to argue that knowledge of fundamental concepts are not needed in order for them to do their job; they missed the point entirely.
First, it must be re-stated that you're looking for a senior developer/architect. This isn't someone who can just get their own job done (give them a complete spec, and they tappity-type-tap and write the implementation), it's a position that must have a solid understanding of many fundamentals, and the ability to think and combine those and problem solve and make the spec that someone else may use.
I'd argue that, when hiring for this level of position, they should know many of the things brought up throughout this /. page:
* basic PKI principals
* linked list implementation from scratch (pseudo code is acceptable)
* basic understanding of sorting algorithms (ex. bubblesort)
* how CIDR masks work. If they don't know this offhand, then ability to pick up the concept quickly once explained.
* bits, bytes, kilobytes conversions
* basic SQL syntax
* basic DB concepts (ex. normalization)
* basic understanding of binary trees
* knowledge of some raw protocol (nothing specific, but they should probably have picked up a few of these in their years of work. Examples: http, smtp, ftp, memcached, imap, dns, etc).
* waterfall vs agile etc
* basic storage concepts/implementations (RAID levels, LVM, networked filesystems, distributed filesystems/locking, snapshots, copy-on-write, etc)
etc etc etc...
Some folks even implied that appropriate candidates may not do well in the interview when asked questions that make them think on their feet (implying they may have social or communication issues). If one can not do so, then how are they appropriate for a systems architect position?
Missing any one of these wouldn't be a deal breaker, but if you're hiring an architect, he needs to understand the materials he's working with; and if you're hiring a *systems* architect, he'd better know what he's working with.
That was a bit much just to say, "I agree". Good luck out there.
works both ways. but of course, during interviews, it never really does work both ways ;(
Change that (as the candidate), and you're quite likely to get more job offers.
In every interview I've ever had, even from back when I was a kid getting a paper route, the interviewer asked if I had any questions (sometimes with the suffix of "about the job" or "about our company" etc). Come prepared! The interviewer had to come up with all their questions and concerns and such, and you should too! When you do, you'll seem very smart (knowing what it is that you don't know is more important than recalling facts, and it shows an strong interest in your career and quality of your employer).
As to the general knowledge questions (the replies here made me feel quite good about myself), those in TFS aren't bad. The general process of private/public key encryption is some very old and well defined maths. If they don't know anything about it, then they don't know anything about that whole subject area. That may or may not rule them out for certain projects/positions. Maybe a follow up request something like, "here's a computer and the internet; I'll come back in 20 minutes and will ask you the same question again". For the question regarding sending something sensitive, that could have any number of answers that could be appropriate... how they solve that problem is a good example of what you'll be getting. If it's, "paste the thing into excel and clicky-clicky and send them the password via SMS", then that speaks volumes about that candidate. Exchanging information securely is hard (applying encryption correctly is the easy part).
But that's exactly the point, do the scripts really need to lug about support for stuff that maybe one, maybe two people actually use?...
:-) This topic is perfect for /. because of the complete lack of scope.
When you refer to "scripts", what level/layer are you referring to? I don't even think there is a well defined naming convention for that (ex. something like an OSI model with respect to configuration of hardware).
Given the networking example...
On the GUI level, there are loads of interfaces, many specialized, to aid in configuring the network. Some of them are protocol-specific, such as various VPN utilities, kppp and other ppp utilities, dial up interfaces, and a bunch of wifi ones too. Many of those are somewhat modular, with a backend/libs, command line interface, gnome/gtk interface, qt/kde interface, and possibly others (curses, xfce, tk, etc). That said, there is a primary target within this cadre: Network Manager and all its cousins.
On the other end of things, within the kernel, there's loads of drivers and standardized ways for those to interface with the various kernel subsystems. Those drivers necessarily have a wide variety of options... that's kinda the point. The vast majority of those can be compiled into the kernel, built as modules, or not built at all. This layer is fairly well defined as there is a clear separation of user space and kernel space; this ends at the first layer that provides a user space API (and this could be considered to constitute two layers... kernel space and user space of that... think OSI layer 1 and 2).
On that kernel level (similar to OSI media layers), I don't think we have a problem. This is, at least partially, due to the monolithic nature of the kernel and it's management by a benevolent dictator. A few comments here have mentioned support for old hardware, but I don't think they are referring to the drivers themselves nor the kernel... they're likely referring to something further up in user space. IMO, if the question is posed here, the answer is "No, Linux is not becoming too complex".
On the top end of the GUI side, I'd also argue that, "No, Linux is not becoming too complex". Yes, it can be a quagmire of various utilities at times, and some work better than others, but that *should* be fine. Hell, that's the only way to quiet those that complain about supporting all that old hardware - just snip it out of the GUI utility or hide it in advanced areas. I would never want to enforce a rule that these must all go through some specific middle ware, though that's really the part we should all be talking about.
So... the middle. This thread referenced "/etc/network/interfaces". That does NOT exist on all distributes (ex. redhat based systems don't have this). Personally, I like /etc/network/interfaces, but it's a good example of fragmentation of "standard" ways/interfaces to configure the kernel networking subsystem. Is it bad that debian and redhat both do it different? IMO, the "becoming too complex" question would imply that this is NOT bad, since this has been this way FOR A LONG LONG LONG TIME, and I'd agree that this amount of differentiation is ok and even good, but this could easily be argued is and firmly into the grey area.
The part that I have very large concerns with is what is currently happening with the low-level just above kernel... specifically, systemd and its related parts. Networking is an example here, as one of its goals is to provide one unified/common way to configure the network.... but doesn't that already exist!?!? It's called the kernel! On the other hand, maybe it will prove to be a useful shim? The fact that a single framework is going in above the kernel, which some direct ties to the kernel, and is casting a very wide net in terms of things it is, or can, control (logging, network, dhcp, login, init, sessions, mounts, consoles/vte, timedated/ntp, devices/udevd)... we'd better hope and pray it's designed well cause everything and the kitchen sink will soon have direct dependencies on the interfaces it's implementing.
Grow lights; Bitcoin/etc miners; Servers; Electroplating; whatever...
Any spikes will be pretty easy to see. Just put a cap on it and bust those that are exceeding it. Bonus, you'll probably ID a lot of existing growers/etc.
As far as the basic idea of free minimal amounts of electricity to the poor, that sounds like a very good thing. Heck, just give everyone their first N kw/month for free.
Why should I have to alt+rclick, dig into the window manager settings, find a theme, etc, etc etc. when XFCE could do what every other decent UI does - PROVIDE A GRABBABLE WINDOW BORDER OUT OF THE BOX.
While I agree with the sentiment, I think you're confusing XFCE and XUbuntu. The distribution, XUbuntu, chose the default theme. For 12.04, that's Greybird, which has 1px wide borders. I've honestly been quite annoyed with that, and I had tried other themes in the past (much much older installs), and just learned to deal with it. HOWEVER, I just tried the theme's again, and "Default-4.6", which I assume is the default XFCE theme, has 5px wide borders... those seem just right to me.
So, complain to XUbuntu. XFCE provides a default theme that fits your default needs. In addition, it's REALLY easy to change your theme. If they had set it to the 5px wide one, I'm sure someone else would be complaining because the border is taking up all their precious screen space and why should they have to go into a menu to ... blah blah blah. The fact is, there is an easy to use settings manager, and it's a couple click to change it. THey're not burying settings like so many other apps these days (gnome, firefox, chrome, etc).